Coffee|Code : Dan Scott

Last week at the WWdN#15 I exceeded my original goals, but failed to make it to the cash after a couple of my hammer bluffs were called (to ruinous effect) by evilwise, astute players.

This week, I have a new goal: I want a piece of that money, baby, that sweet sweet WWdN cash. Dare to dream. I'm going to rub it all over my chest, slide it around between my thighs, and lick it from end to end. Oh yeah... Mmm, that got me going, so I've kind of made a mess of this week's entry fee. You don't mind, do you? Oh? Hmm. Sorry. The reason for my new focus on cash is that I had a bit of a nasty weekend, you see, where I dropped about $150 in a continuous string of bad beats in SNGs. Overall, I'm still up about $350 since starting this whole sordid affair in October... but $500 is such a nice, round number, I would like to get back to it.

I learned last week that Tactix is brother to Joane1111, and also that elcee (not bluegillchow, what was I thinking) is Joanne1111's father. In the interest of full disclosure and honesty, I have to reveal that dsheep is my brother and NHL 200X is my cousin. Interestingly, both of them have been, are now, and will once again be my lovers. So, for all of you people wandering through my blog for the first time shaking your head at my little poker addiction--it's nothing compared to good clean incestuous fun. Whooo!

The live-blogging didn't seem to hurt my game too much last week, so I'll give it a shot again this time around. While you might not get live blogs, you can probably get a much better post-game account from the far more interesting blogs of SirFWALGman and slimeface.

A final note for you slack-jawed cretins who fail to enter the tournament until mere moments before the tourney starts: you can register a few hours ahead of time, turn off your Pokerstars client, and join the game at any time. This leaves you free to have a relaxing dinner with your spouse, teach your nephew some new and obscure profanity, and get half-way through a house repair job before you have to join the game. If you don't register in advance, and you're late, then you miss out on all the fun, period.

So, in your Pokerstars client, go to Tourney -> Private -> WWdN #16 and enter the password monkey. It's a shot at fame, glory, and sweet sweet cash (albeit cash smeared against my body). And it's the best damn fun on the whole dang Intuhnaht!

As I mentioned in a previous post, I'm leaving IBM for a new opportunity at Laurentian University. Over the past year and a half a lot of my personal and professional effort has gone into the PHP community: contributing documentation, acting as the release lead for the ibm_db2 and PDO_INFORMIX extensions, giving conference sessions, and writing the occasional article.

When I made the decision to leave IBM, I also had to back down from some related commitments that I had made (formally and informally) to a few different people and groups. I want to apologize publically for letting you down, and hope that you'll forgive me:

• Open Source Content Management Summit (OSCMS): I was going to give a nice update on my database portability talk, focusing on the experiences I've had in trying to port Serendipity to run on DB2. Unfortunately, once I decided to leave IBM I couldn't justify sticking Big Blue with the travel and accomodations costs for flying out to Vancouver, so I had to back out of OSCMS with just a few weeks' notice. I felt really, really bad about that.
• Speaking of Serendipity, I still owe Gavin that patch for enabling DB2... I'll find the time one of these evenings!
• PHP Quebec: I was going to give a couple of talks at PHP Quebec in March, and was really looking forward to the conference given the trip reports and pictorial evidence from the last couple of years. However, it falls in the middle of the week. Worse, for me, it will be the third week at my new job, and while I expect Laurentian University to be a very understanding employer, my focus for the first few months has to be on learning the culture and challenges of my new position.
• An article here or there on DB2 and PHP: it made more sense to help get other IBMers involved and visible in the community, which meant handing off plans for an article to a different writer (and consequently blowing at least one publication schedule). I apologized in private for this at the time, but want to apologize publically as well. You know who you are...

Now, a few of you have wondered on IRC whether this means the end of my contributions to the PHP community... the answer is an emphatic *heck no*! First of all, my new position will give me some latitude in deciding upon the technologies we use to solve the problems we face, and the Library is already using PHP... so we're likely to continue to use it. And on a personal level, there are a number of projects that I want to continue to be involved with:

• PHP Data Objects (PDO): the basic documentation is in decent shape, but I have some catching up to do on new features, some examples to add, and some driver-specific documentation to add. I'll actually be in a better position to document it in my new role.
• PDO_ODBC: I noticed some significant regressions in the PDO_ODBC driver between the 5.1.0 and 5.1.1 releases that the 5.1.2 release did not address. Given that the ibm_db2 driver is written in DB2 CLI, a very close cousin to ODBC, I'm sure that with a few hours of investigation I can submit some patches for PDO_ODBC that will get the 5.1.3 release back on track. Oh yeah, and I have motivation to make sure this works because that book I co-authored contains a chapter on PDO_ODBC...
• Documentation in general: I still need some outlets for technical writing, so I plan to keep an eye on the phpdoc project and contribute to the tools and docs where it makes the most sense.

So I'll still be around; you just won't see me at the conferences this year, and I'll probably be even less productive over the next few months than normal as I adjust to the new role at the University. Oh, not to mention my new role as a father, which I am also expected to take on in a few months. But over time, I'm sure you'll hear more from me, and you'll start seeing submissions for conferences and articles grounded in my experiences at the library.

After almost eight years, today is my penultimate day at IBM.

I've done a lot of interesting work for IBM in that time. From learning about Linux back in 1998 by testing the pre-release DB2 Version 5.2 beta for Linux, to writing the original DB2 for Linux HOWTO for the Linux Documentation Project, to helping realize the DB2 Information Center (setting the standard for the entire IBM corporation along the way), to helping give PHP solid support for DB2... it's a pretty amazing set of accomplishments for a person whose previous jobs include such well-respected positions as an inventory clerk and a night clerk at a convenience store.

The funny thing is, my real professional training is as an information professional. Ahem. More specifically, I have a Master's of Information Studies from the University of Toronto. Still doesn't mean anything to you? Okay... I'm a professionally accredited librarian.

No, not this:

More like this...

After our move to the frozen wastelands of the North, I was given the opportunity to exercise those long-neglected information professional muscles in an academic environment. I hemmed and hawed over it for a very long time, but on Wednesday, I'll be starting my new career as the Systems Librarian for Laurentian University. It is very difficult to leave IBM behind, as the people I have worked with have been pretty amazing, and much of the personal and professional growth that I have undergone has been due to the nurturing environment of Big Blue... but Laurentian is giving me a fabulous opportunity that I don't want to miss.

So -- farewell to IBM, and hello Laurentian! Between the new home, the new job, and the new baby on the way, it is going to be a very interesting year

Last time I tried this live-blogging thing, I reached my goal of placing in the top 100. Of course, there were only 99 registered players, and I placed 99th, so that was the wrong kind of outstanding finish.

This time, I'm aiming a bit higher:

• Not be the first person knocked out of the tournament (hee-haw!)
• Make it to the break.

I had a great Sunday of poker, ringing up $150 net, so this means that the poker gods will probably send in a golden shower for me. Ah well, stay tuned for the exciting story of the WWdN#15: KentAllard Invitational...